<i>DMCH patients caught in Eid holiday plight</i>

Sufia Begum was repeatedly denied admission to the burn and plastic surgery unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) in the last four days as admission is put on hold temporarily with most doctors and nurses on leave.
She has been asked to show up after the Eid holidays are over on September 4.
Sufia, hailing from Muktagachha in Mymensingh, requires plastic surgery for complete recovery from her head injury. She was treated for 20 days by the hospitals' neurosurgery department, which referred her to the burn unit four days ago and released her in the morning.
The neurosurgery department is also in a hurry to "get rid of" as many patients as possible ahead of the Eid holidays.
"Where should I go now with the treatment half-done?" said Sufia as she covered her bandaged head with a part of the saree she was wearing.
A helpless Sufia was standing outside the emergency entrance to DMCH as her farmer husband, Abdul Barek, was struggling to hire a CNG-run three-wheeler to go to his father-in-law's house in Lalbagh.
"We are not admitting patients other than those requiring emergency treatment as most of our doctors and nurses are on leave," said a DMCH on-duty doctor asking not to be named.
Sufia was not alone as several hundred patients were unusually released from different city public hospitals including DMCH, National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (Nitor), National Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (NICVD), Shaheed Suhrawardy Hospital, National Institute of Mental Health, and Kidney and Urology Hospital.
Only in the last week the number of patients at DMCH went down to 1,501 from about 2,100. Patients were seen leaving the hospital throughout the afternoon yesterday.
During a visit to Nitor, many of the hospital beds were seen empty as patients left the hospital in large numbers.
"We are releasing the patients who are out of danger and almost recovered from their ailment. In many cases patients themselves requested for early release on the occasion of Eid," said Nitor Director Prof Khandaker Abdul Awal Rizvi.
He admitted that more than half of the doctors and nurses would be on leave for three days. He, however, said hospital staffs living in the city were granted leave on condition of rushing to the hospital in case of emergency, while the regular emergency service would operate as usual.
He failed to give the exact number of doctors and nurses going on leave but said 18 out of the 80 doctors would be on duty during the festival.
With regards to nurses at DMCH, only 122 non-Muslim nurses out of total 669 would be on duty on the Eid day.
During visits to the above mentioned city hospitals, it was learned that the authorities allowed admission to a very few patients last week unless there was an emergency situation.
The mass discharge mostly affected the patients who came from remote places and are yet to be recovered completely or awaiting operation after the Eid.
"My elder brother has been discharged though he still requires treatment. Doctors have asked us to come after the Eid," said Mohammad Shakil, who came from Syedpur in Rangpur nine days ago after his brother, Anwar Hossain, suffered a brain stroke.
Anwar was discharged two days ago but could not be taken out of the hospital as he was too weak to bear a travel through the dilapidated road to Rangpur.